For Master Plans, Funding Applications, and general financial management it is necessary
to know the types and weights of aircraft that use the airport, and how many movements they
make. A change to heavier aircraft, or from fixed wing to helicopter activity, requires
different facilities, and often changes to the Health-and-Safety procedures in order to
maintain a safe environment for the Pilots, Staff and Contractors, and Public.

How is Aimm able to do this?

Aimm identifies for every movement: the time, date, the specific aircraft call sign
or flight number, (and in the case of major airlines, the actual aircraft that
flew the sector on that occasion), aircraft weight, type of aircraft, aircraft operator with full name and address,
type of movement (Takeoff / Landing / TnG), and runway or helipad approach in use.
The data highlights are summarised in graphical form for Management in the
monthly Dashboard Reports, and a very detailed
Billing / Movement Report in spreadsheet format
for further analysis.

INCOME from MOVEMENTS: From the smallest recreational Airfield to
the largest international Airport, aerodromes generate a significant part of their
income from Landing Fees in one form or another. There can be
a fee for each landing, or a Yearly Bulk Fee / Subscription arrangement for unlimited landings
for particular aircraft, or some combination... but one way or another
when an aircraft touches down then the aircraft operator needs to pay a share of
the costs of maintaining the facilities.

Revenue generation

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' landing fee rate, its up to each Airport to set its own fees after considering its facilities,
its expenses, and what it wants to achieve.

Aimm sees statistics from a large number of Airports, and some general
observations have emerged:

Fee Basis: Specify
Landing Fees by Aircraft Type, by Weight Band, by Base fee plus Fees in
Weight Bands, etc? Aimm can handle very complex
fee structures with no problems for itself. But complex fees were
usually set for
historical reasons that are long forgotten, and they confuse pilots leading to
billing queries... e.g. a helicopter pilot knows that their fee is $10
and tells a fixed wing pilot who then gets charged $15 and contacts the airport
to ask why, which is unproductive for everyone. "Simple is easy." When an Airport reviews its
fee structure a common simplification is to change to "$xx / Tonne", calculated
to the Kg, across ALL aircraft types. Often with a fixed minimum to cover fixed overheads on
very small aircraft. This is easy understood by pilots and
automatically adjusts the fee for the usage of facilities. Property
maintenance, car parking, use of toilets, the neighbours noise tolerance,
administration, Health and Safety etc, all tend to be related to the size of the aircraft.
In pre-computer days fees were often in weight bands due to the difficulty of
calculating the fee to the exact Kg for each aircraft, but that is no problem
for a computer, and fee to the Kg makes it quicker to match up payments to the
invoice (and identify the right invoice when the payee does not quote a
reference), as most invoices will be for different amounts. When considering
changing the fee basis, it is important to discuss with major operators
first. They will be supportive if they understand that a
change to the fee calculation doesn't have to change the overall fees, and can
be cost neutral, increase or decrease fees, depending on what $/tonne you set.
Its also possible to set special rates for particular aircraft, or an operators
whole fleet.

Yearly bulk fees: These work well for recreational flyers, but not commercial operators. Over time commercial operators
either grow or cease business. If they grow, a fixed yearly bulk fee
can leave the airport unable to improve the facilities to meet the increasing
service level required. When a new Aimm Client Airport gets its first monthly
reports, it's common to find that their flying schools are paying for each
training session, less than 10% of a casual landing fee. Which is fine if that is what the Airport wants, and can make that decision with
the benefit of knowledge. Fees per training session are easy to set
up in Aimm, and can be at a non-standard rate, either higher or lower than the
casual landing fee. Because computerisation makes
fee-per-landing easy to bill, Yearly Bulk Fees are now used less than
previously for commercial operators and it is increasingly common for busy airports to have all
aircraft operators, including those based locally, on fee-per-landings rather
than Yearly Bulk fees. This matches the payments accurately to
usage, and avoids time consuming, and sometimes adversarial, re-negotiations with
their major customers.

Waived fees. Airfields / Airports that have Yearly bulk
fees DO need to know what
level of fees they are waiving. E.g. a mid sized Council Airport that has everyone on yearly bulk fees.
If these total $50,000, the airport does need to know if it would have
been $180,000 if everyone had been charged the normal landing fee, so that the size of the subsidy is known. This shows value delivered,
"The Council subsidised its ratepaying
aviators by $130k last year", and supports the airport management, "Even though
we are only collecting $50k a year, we are running a $180k enterprise and so
$60k grant to reseal the carpark is a reasonable request." To allow
this type of Management analysis, in addition to the actual fee charged (often
$0), Aimm's monthly movements spreadsheet shows the 'list price' for all movements, even if waived.

Self reporting; Having operators report passenger numbers and pay fees based on that
can be made to work, but is only satisfactory if the Airport can confirm the number independently by
comparing to actual aircraft movement numbers for the operator.
Otherwise self-reporting numbers tend to become less accurate over time, as
various operator administrators interpret what is a 'reportable' passenger and
what is not. Much less admin is involved if a special landing fee is
set based on the average number of passengers per flight. If
passenger numbers do need to be reported for other reasons than generating
revenue, they can be provided by the operator for that without the payments
depending on the accuracy of the numbers. When changing the payments basis or
fees, an effective process is to sit down with the operator
and ask them what fee they think reasonable per flight, as a % of the casual
landing fee or based on average passenger numbers in the aicraft.
Commercial operators are required by law to keep passenger manifests showing the
number of passengers for each flight, and copies of these for a few months will
show both the number of flights, and passengers, so the average passenger
loading can be calculated accurately. Eg if there were 300
passengers over 30 flights then there are an average of 10 passengers per
flight. If the fee per passenger is $5, then setting a landing fee
of $50 will bill the passenger fees as an average landing fee with no need for
self reporting, which removes a potential source of friction between the airport
operator and their customers. Aimm can handle special fees for specific
aircraft.

Aero Clubs: Clubs often have a long history on the Airport, and
a lot of local knowledge. This is a valuable resource, so Airport
Management will benefit from having one or two experienced Club members (often
past presidents) on the Airport Management and Safety commitees.
Both the Club and Management have a strong interest in the quality of the
facilities, and maintaining the long term viability of the Airport, so the Club
should be closely involved at an early stage in any decisions concerning Landing
Fees and other charges.

Airport Funding

Whether the Airport is generating its own income, or applying for an
ongoing subsidy from a Council, it needs hard facts and
figures on its changing levels of usage... which parts of he business are
expanding? Which contracting? Which types of activity are
running a surplus? Cost neutral? A Deficit?

For an Airport the
aircraft movement numbers are the critical 'facts and figures' that show what is
happening, so that informed decisions can be made by the Management and
Board / Supervisor. Aimm provides this
information, collated and
summarised where helpful and presented in fine detail where that is useful.
From this information, the manager can see what needs to be done to
service changing levels of demand, and the Board / Supervisor can consider the
long term funding needs, and how those are to be met.

INVESTORS: Those Airports that have (or want) private investment need to show that
they are competent managers with good systems in place to know who is doing that,
when and why. Aimm's monthly reports provide this.

Grant Applications

Airports are an essential long term amenity for an area, and many levels of Government (from Local Councils on up),
have funding for development of infrastructure. For smaller recreational airfields, sponsorship
is often available from local businesses and lottery commissions etc for
sporting clubs, like Aero Clubs.
But no one hands out grants based on rough estimates... they need to see hards facts and figures on paper to justify their distribution, so a
Grant Application needs to be supported by good written reports showing current levels of activity,
to support credible estimates
of future levels.

Aimm's reports provide the facts, figures, and graphs that show what is happening now and the changes over
time. Some substantial Grants have been obtained by Aimm Client Airports with the supporting documentation that the Aimm
system has provided. We do love to hear the words, "We got the grant, many thanks for your help..."

If there are concentrations of movements across a days of the week, or seasons... as in the above case
where the weekends are particularly busy... requests for extra funding to provide more facilities might be
justified even if the average level is not high enough to require that.
This affects Master Plans, Funding and Revenue requirements.

Airport Master Plans

Airports are often required by legislation to have a 'Master Plan'. This necessarily requires evidence of the actual level of activity now,
and how it is changing over time. Aimm provides this in a cost-effective manner, with the cost often covered by the extra revenue
that it makes possible to collect.